Lots of bad news and bad memories, but I'm having a difficult time linking the cause (breaking the labor unions) to the effect (loss of industry).

In the simplistic model of "The Good Woman of Szechuan," the practices of the evil twin led to exploitation and suffering for the workers, but the factory prospered. The practices of the Good Woman provided relieve to the workers, but the factory went bust.

Crikey! Now you're asking. I'm not an economist, so this is way beyond my field of expertise.

I know enough to be aware that previous attempts to create economic utopia have all ended in tyranny. At the same time, something has to be terribly wrong with a system that rewards CEOs with millions for failure, while at the same time half the world lives on the breadline.

pinhedz wrote:In this film, it's her colleagues in her own party that come off the worst. Were they really such whining, vacillating pipsqueaks?

For the most part, the so-called "wets" in Thatcher's first cabinet were old-style 'one nation' MacMillanite conservatives, decent enough people by their own lights and open to compromise. That's why she got rid of them.

Crikey! Now you're asking. I'm not an economist, so this is way beyond my field of expertise.

I know enough to be aware that previous attempts to create economic utopia have all ended in tyranny. At the same time, something has to be terribly wrong with a system that rewards CEOs with millions for failure, while at the same time half the world lives on the breadline.

Andy might be able to provide some answers.

The dilemma is presented very starkly (albeit simplistically) in "The Good Woman of Szechuan."

When the good woman runs the factory, she treats the workers with compassion, and the enterprise goes into debt (Bob would point out that the cost of employee benefits and salaries drives up the price of the products, so oversees producers can make the same products cheaper--tariffs are supposed to alleviate this problem).

Then the evil cousin takes over, oppresses and exploits the workers, and the factory prospers.

I was waiting to see "How is Brecht going to get us out of this?" He then presented his solution just as simplistically as he presented the problem--and what a disappointment it was. He assumed that with collective ownership all human greed would magically disappear.

The mystery and suspense part was not bad, but then it turned into a stinker by getting are righteous and moralistic. The hero does "The Right Thing," which any hollywood writer knows means taking the story to the press.

I just saw Madonna's movie about Wallis and Edward--"W.E." The actress who plays Wallis is so perfect she's indistinguishable from the real Wallis in the newsreels. Bertie comes off as a dithering milquetoast.

But the real main characters are a fictional modern-day researcher (named Wally by her parents after the duchess), and Wally's Russian boyfriend Evgeniy Prokopov, a refugee intellectual and pianist working as a security guard.

Wally sometimes intrudes herself into the flashbacks to Wallis and Edward's time, which always annoys Wallis.

StorylineChelo is an architect, withdrawing from her social life because of realistic dreams she's having of a romance with a strange man. She's convinced the man is real, out there, destined to be with her. She reports a rape to the police, describing the man of her dreams to a sketch artist. The police find a suspect: he's Marcos, a physician. Chelo tells the police this is not the man who raped her, but now she has Marcos in her sights. Her plan for him to fall in love with her is complicated by his having a fiancée. What can Chelo do? Meanwhile, Marcos has violent dreams about an unfamiliar woman. Chronologies overlap, glass breaks. Can a mind lie to itself? Written by <jhailey@hotmail.com>

Herakles (1962) Game in The Sand (1964) The Unprecedented Defence of the Fortress Deutschkreuz (1966) Last Words (1968) Precautions Against Fanatics (1969) No One Will Play With Me (1976) Les Gaulois (1988)

Documentary feature films

The Flying Doctors of East Africa (1969) Handicapped Future (1971) Land of Silence and Darkness (1971) The Great Ecstasy of Woodcarver Steiner (1974) How Much Wood Would a Woodchuck Chuck (1976) Huie's Sermon (1980) God's Angry Man (1980) Ballad of the Little Soldier (1984) The Dark Glow of the Mountains (1984) Wodaabe – Herdsmen of the Sun (1989) Echoes From a Somber Empire (1990) Jag Mandir (1991) Lessons of Darkness (1992) Bells from the Deep (1993) The Transformation of the World into Music (1994) Gesualdo: Death for Five Voices (1995) Little Dieter Needs to Fly (1997) My Best Fiend (1999) Wings of Hope (2000) Wheel of Time (2003) The White Diamond (2004) Grizzly Man (2005) Encounters at the End of the World (2007) Cave of Forgotten Dreams (2010) Into the Abyss (2011)